


Reunions

by orphan_account



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, F/M, Fluff, Healing, I needed closure ok, Inej and Kaz reunite, Kaz takes off his gloves, M/M, Post-Book 2: Crooked Kingdom, Post-Crooked Kingdom, Reunions, Six of Crows, The crows eventually have a reunion, inej/kaz
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21516265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: My post Crooked Kingdom headcannon. Inej returns to Ketterdam but only for a visit, and eventually the Crows come together again for a gloriously fluffy reunion! Might later include more heavily focused Inej/Kaz. Also, there may be some minor ~adventure~ later on - we’ll see. More chapters to come!
Relationships: Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck, Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 4
Kudos: 54





	1. I Miss You

Inej stood on the deck of The Wraith, arms braced against the rail as salty wind whipped through her dark hair and the foamy sea splashed at her face. It was her six month as captain of her little vessel, and in the time since she had set sail from Ketterdam, she had liberated dozens of slave ships and countless slaves. Inej loved her work, but she and her crew had recently taken a break from her slow demolition of the slave trade in order to deposit her parents on the coast of Ravka - these last six months, they had sailed with Inej, but they had begun to pine for home. She had dropped them off at a port not far from their home, with enough money for them to travel there and then some. They had left her with loving embraces and the admonition to return to visit soon. 

The money she gave them came from her own funds, which were ample. There was, of course, the four million kruge with which she had started, but as of late her accounts had been supplemented regularly by a strange source, based in Ketterdam: a certain Mr. Brekker, of the Crow Club and the Slat, barrel boss, self-professed monster, etc, etc, was apparently highly invested in the abolition of the slave trade. Inej had a sneaking suspicion that the reason said Mr. Brekker was donating thousands of kruge to her cause each month had less to do with his hatred of slavery and more to do with an acquaintance of his aboard then vessel - that acquaintance, of course, being herself.

Kaz. Saints, she missed him. She would cut off her pinkie toe before she admitted it, but there was a Kaz-shaped hole in her heart that even the joy that liberating her people could not fill. It was relatively small, yes, but it was definitely there. In the times when she wasn’t busy (which were few and far between) or, more often, as she drifted off to sleep at night, she would find her mind wandering back to the Barrel boy she knew and - fine - loved. Her mind would drift to him without her permission; his rough salty burr of a voice, that limp when he walked, his habit of running his gloved hands through his hair. And then - of how his hands had looked without those gloves, fumbling with her bandages, pressed firmly in her own. The shape of his lips as they had ghosted over her shoulder. Others would see him as a ruthless boss, a scavenger, a crow, but Inej remembered him as he had been in those moments - a straightbacked, limping boy in an impeccably tailored black suit, the polished bone of his crows’ head cane stark against the white of his hands, the bitterness in his coffee-brown eyes softening as he watched her find her parents on the quay. A crow, yes, but her crow, who had somehow wormed his way into her heart over the last few years.

He had written to her, these last few months, the letters coming every five weeks or so. How he got them to her Inej has no idea, but every time she and her crew stopped at a port, a red-cheeked messenger boy had inevitably come racing up to her moments before the gangplank was dropped. He’d hand her a lesson and run off, and the letter invariably was addressed thus:

Mr. Kaz Brekker, Barrel Boss and self-professed daemon, to Captain Inej Ghafa, Queen of the Seas, Freer of Slaves, Ship Sinker, Reaper of Men, and my Wraith (read this letter, message boy, and I swear to Ghezen that I will find you and rip out your eyes) : a note.

The first time Inej had received one of his letters, (after she had recovered from the shock of receiving one at all), she had laughed until she cried, all before even opening the letter. The letters Kaz sent were laced with his usual morbid humor and wit, and provided a welcome update on himself and the rest of the crows. He told her of how Jesper and Wylan were doing marvelously running the estate with the help of a nearly recovered Mayra, and of how they about killed all of the Dregs with their ceaseless flirting whenever they dropped by the Slat. He relayed the message of Nina’s departure for Fjerda, both to bury Matthias in his homeland and to set out on a mission commissioned by the Ravkan government in order to rescue Grisha victims of parem. And he provided her with that dose of Kaz that she needed to keep herself from running right back to Ketterdam. His letters, however, had not been as personal as she would have liked. He told her about the others, but made no mention of himself; at times she had wondered if he even missed her at all. Until his last letter, which had arrived scarce more than a week ago.

Kaz had provided the usual update, saying the Nina was well and they Wylan and Jesper has just left for Novi Zem (Not forever, Kaz had said. Just a month or so, long enough for them to see Colm and for everyone to get acquainted with Jesper’s country.). Then, at the bottom, as almost an afterthought, there had been a postscript:

You should visit. I miss you. 

Those few words had meant more to Inej than any had before. I miss you. She’d been thinking of visiting Kerch anyway, to scout out the area, see the crows, get a taste of home. She’d been thinking of sometime in a few months, but trade was better in Ketterdam this time of year, wasn’t it? And so Inej had made a decision to sail for the city, a decision that Kaz had not influenced at all. Maybe a little. That aside, they were sailing for Kerch, and would arrive in scarce more than a week. Inej was flush with nerves from her decision, nerves she told herself didn’t exist.

And so she ignored her racing heart and turned her face to where Ketterdam harbor would soon be visible, Kaz’s written phrase ringing through her mind:  
I miss you.


	2. Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inej arrives in Ketterdam!

Almost two weeks later, The Wraith arrived in Ketterdam. It was early evening, and the sun was just beginning to go down, casting the city into the familiar hazey dusk that Inej knew and loved so well. They docked in the familiar berth that Kaz had secured so long ago. So much had happened here, and if Inej closed her eyes she could almost taste it; a few hundred feet from here, they had been ambushed and Inej had been stabbed; here, Jesper had shot at the Dime Lions from high in a crow’s nest, long since destroyed; here, Kaz had carried a half-conscious Inej up the gangplank, near hysterical with rage and fear. Here, a still-living Matthias Helvar had left heavy boot prints on the damp dock.

It was a place of pain and remembrance, and the weight it carried made Inej long to be gone. It was a longing that warred with the other feelings in her heart: nostalgia, a sense of home, and, most strongly, the fear of seeing Kaz again. It had been six months; what if they had grown apart? What if Kaz, instead of becoming more vulnerable (as she had hoped), had grown in on himself and become even colder? Well, there was nothing else for it - there was only one way to find out. 

Inej strode briskly over to her first mate, Stross, dropping as she did so her usual wraith’s whisper of a walk in favor of the heavier (but still graceful) sailor’s gait she had learned at sea. Sailors didn’t take kindly to being crept up on.

“Stross!” she said as he turned to face her. “Let the crew know that they’re to take two weeks of paid leave. If my errand takes less time than anticipated, I’ll find a way to round you all up later. If it … takes longer than expected, I’ll meet you here in two weeks time and let you know. Until then, I want a round-the-clock guard on the ship, with at least two sailors on board at a time. The men can take shifts.” 

She received a curt nod in return. At sea, there wasn’t much room for niceties.

That accomplished, Inej oversaw the ship as the men left and saw that the first shift had been assigned to Rotty and Lenos; a good pair. Confident about their ability to keep the ship safe, Inej turned toward the gangplank, ignored the rising bubble in her throat, and strode confidently off of the ship and onto the filthy streets of the city that had been her home. 

Inej remembered perfectly the moment she had fallen in love with Kaz. I had seemed so sudden at the time, like a gentle slope and then a sudden drop, but Inej was certain that there had been a slow build, simply without her noticing. And then came the moment when she finally realized what had happened, and by then it was too late to fix anything. That moment had come on a grey Thursday afternoon, when Ketterdam was cloaked in moody clouds that drizzled the city with dreary rain and fine mist. Kaz and Inej had just come in from a mission, and Inej had taken her usual route through the window to perch on the sill in Kaz’s study while he took longer to climb the stairs. And then - and this moment was rendered in crisp detail in her mind - Kaz had walked through the door, and the weight of the mask he wore had slid from him like a heavy coat. He had pulled off his jacket and vest, sliding them onto the back of a chair (ever tidy, Kaz, regardless of his state of exhaustion), leaving him in his pristine collared shirt, black tie, suspenders, dress pants, his customary boots, and gloves. Kaz had used his teeth to pull off his gloves, folded them on his desk, and run his bare hands through his disheveled hair before collapsing into his desk chair. Inej had perched in the window sill, watching the entire thing, and then the realization came to her, crystal clear:  
 _Saints, I think I’ve fallen in love._

Now, as she stood once again at the base of the Slat, gazing up at the window she knew to be Kaz’s study, that moment was called to her mind. She was here not for a ruthless Barrel boss, not for a scavenger, not for a crow. She was here for the Kaz that had slumped at his desk, coatless, gloveless, and who had rested his rumpled dark head in his hands and asked Inej in his rock-salt gravel whether she was going to continue to watch him from the windowsill like a spider or come the hell inside and make some tea. She was here for the Kaz that had tried his best to change her bandages with his bare, trembling hands. She was here for the Kaz that had held her warm hand in his cold one and given her the world. She was here for Kaz, dammit, not for anyone else. And so she took a deep breath and began to scale the wall. 

In a few seconds, she had made the familiar path to the window that connected to Kaz’s office and rooms. She’d perched here a thousand times before, so why did this feel different? Why was her heart beating so hard she could feel it in her throat? 

Kaz’s window was open, the glass up and the shutters thrown wide to let in the cool evening air. Through it, she could hear the faint scratching of a pen that meant that Kaz was working at his desk. Sure enough, when she garnered the courage to look inside, she saw him. He was in his shirtsleeves, hunched over his work, scribbling away with his usual bronze and black pen. Inej pushed away her rising panic and slipped silently into the room as she had done so many times before. 

Her feet hit the ground noiselessly, and there was no way that Kaz could have heard her, but he straightened and stopped his work. Inej froze.

“Inej?” Kaz whispered, a note of something - was that _hope_? - in his rough burr of a voice. 

Inej took a step forward. The motion was noiseless, and yet - suddenly - Kaz whirled and stood in one practiced motion. 

And there he was. He was facing her, and Inej could see his face, and _there he was_. Same coffee brown eyes, same tousled dark hair, same pale, faintly scarred skin. Those eyes were focused directly on hers, shock and surprise and _joy_ obvious in them. 

“ _Kaz_ ,” she said, and then she was running towards him and he was running towards her, and then suddenly he had wrapped his arms around her in a crushing embrace, and then she was crying - softly, yes, but _crying_ \- into his chest, and through her tears she could hear him sobbing quietly as well. 

“Kaz,” she said again.

“Inej,” he replied, voice made huskier than usual by his tears. 

They held each other for a long time, until each of their sobs had quieted. The whole time, Inej could not help but be a bit amazed - the Kaz she knew would not have been this emotional, this fast. But Inej wasn’t complaining; Kaz was warm and steady against her, his arms strong around her, and her _wanting_ for him hit her like a ton of bricks. She’d forgotten how much she needed this, how much she trusted Kaz. She’d forgotten how much Kaz felt like home. 

Finally, they pulled away from each other, but Kaz held on to one of her arms. Inej looked up to study his face and felt him do the same. Her face was red and blotchy from crying, no doubt, but she didn’t care. His hand slid down her arm to hold her wrist, and as he did so, she became aware of a crucial fact - Kaz’s hand was bare. 

“Kaz,” she said, voice slightly wondering. “You’re not wearing your gloves.”

Kaz looked her dead in the eyes and gave her that slight smirk she knew and loved so well.

“I try, Wraith,” he said. “I try.”


End file.
